My satire on Tumblr!

Tumblr is a blogging website that has twirled the cyberspace around its fingers. It suffices to be a new method of procrastination-as if we needed another one. But let me assure you, it is much more than a simple blogging website. It’s like Fightclub, you can’t speak of it anywhere besides Tumblr but everyone knows about it. Looks like I just committed a peccadillo but I suppose I can justify my actions under public welfare. I think as I read this, the Tumblr users in this class would either be nodding their heads along with me or shooting daggers at me through their eyes. If you do neither, I will consider myself successful.

The Tumblr community can be neatly stereotyped in a few categories. My favorite category is called Political Correctness Activists. I think they’re definitely pièce de résistance of the entire community. These are the ones who feel the need to debunk everyone in this universe for their misuse of language. You can’t have a normal conversation with them without becoming the bane of their existence. For example, if you say cats are really cute, you will be attacked for making such a definitive statement. I mean, you should have said that “in your personal opinion cats are cute”. Moreover, cuteness is usually associated with appearance, and by calling a cat cute you are being disrespectful to the cat community which shouldn’t merely be judged by how “cute” they are. Saying that a cat is cute is also kind of racist or animalist (if such a thing exists) against other species of animals. Although it is important to avoid aberration in speech, casuistry ideas can’t be applied to every situation. And that is precisely what these people are doing.

Moving on, my second favorite kind of Tumblr users are the Anonymous haters. There’s an option on Tumblr where people can ask you questions without revealing their blog URL’s and let me tell you something about anonymity: it gives people a chance to voice their opinions without it being held against them. Now, usually this malcontent audience is fun to deal with because mainly they chastise you for your opinions. But my favorite part is when the person they’re sending lackluster hate mail to turns into a cantankerous baby. It’s so easy to lose temper and by doing so, the person ends up pandering the anonymous hater’s purpose i.e. to incite a reaction and depredation. The funny thing is though that hate mail is assumed to have a direct relationship with popularity. In some bizarre way, the amount of hate mail you get equates to your fame on Tumblr. So there are people who deliberately make statements that would get them hate mail instead of empathy. I suppose hate mail serves to be a way for hedonism for some.

There’s an unsaid rule on Tumblr that is very similar to the Miranda warning: everything you say can be and will be held against you. It matters not if you acknowledge that your statement was ad hoc to the given situation, it will face an unofficial trial by the Tumblr audience. For instance, if you dare to say that in your opinion Ron Paul is the best republican candidate, expect a mob of people to enlist his flaws for the next five centuries. Keep in mind that people on Tumblr are there to procrastinate and thus lack a life. So arguing back wouldn’t be wise unless of course you have homework to put off. I guess the good thing about this is that it makes you think twice before forming an opinion.

The Tumblr community is very open-minded. All opinions are welcome as long as your opinion coincides with the norm. The moment you deviate, all mellifluous words will be forgotten and you will be put under the limelight until you remand your opinion. Even nepotism wouldn’t work in such scenarios. I guess freedom of speech only works if your speech is not, de facto, free.

You learn a lot from Tumblr, especially terms like “Special Snowflake Complex.” It sounds like a disease but in actuality it’s a fake syndrome where you think you’re a special little snowflake because you think or act differently than others. It’s funny because you will see a lot of Tumblr users making fun of people with the aforementioned condition when they themselves are indeed a victim of this complex. There are also those who claim to not believe in labels and yet have a billion labels typed in their “About Me” section.

Sometimes I feel like Tumblr is a harbinger for generations to come. If so, then we can expect a lot more talking and less doing by the people. Of course, what I describe is bathos of the scene. I am a part of the very community which naturally gives me the right to jab at it.

Mask

It took me four minutes to peel my mask of. I examined the remains of glue hanging from my face as I recounted my performance in my mind. Timing? Perfect. Anxiety? Intense. Silence? Intimidating. Lighting? Daunting. This was followed by the fervid kudos. People inveigle me with their tautology applause. What they believe to be my heyday is in reality my rock bottom.

It surpasses my intellect. This emptiness, that is. I feel like a tree infested with fungi; so hollow and void of real thoughts. The irony of the situation is, however, that I put masks on to make a living. Each persona I wear should be beatitude that fills me up; something that erases nothing. But with each act, I lose myself. I believe I have started to live my performance. And every time I remove my makeup, I remove my own skin.

It’s easier that way, you know. Being someone else, criticizing someone else. That way, you know the ending to your story. It’s the uncertainty that I fear. What is to come? What will be? Oh how very terrifying it is. Why else is it that man fears death and darkness? Unknown is terrifying. Known bodes the mistakes of future. But mystery builds a new infrastructure and sometimes it can have dank foundation. Through my work, I neglect life. I truckle into my persona to avoid confrontation.

I miss people. I crave for friends who’re not two-faced sycophants. I yearn for company that would eliminate the fetid air of my house. I am tired of the prolix silence of my mind. Take this lagniappe away from me. I don’t want it. All these prototypes that I’m asked to follow are piling emptiness on me.

I look in the mirror and see a bête noire. As the crimson color from my eyeliner runs down my cheek, I begin to see myself. I am an incubus that wakes children up from the haven of their beliefs. I am the cold haunting merciless antagonist feeding on greed. I am the despairing forlorn lost beggar pleading for penitence. I see tears in my eyes. I am crying. But over what? For what? Maybe at myself, for becoming what I am today. Or perhaps at what I see from where I stand.

They say self-apathy is the worst. That the one who suffers gargantuan amounts of mental torture finds physical torture mundane. I can vouch for that. All these years. All those ecumenical performances. I was trying to build a life for myself when all I created was a lie.

Home.

I wonder how long it takes to transform a house into a home. How many cups of coffee need to be made before the smell of the paint goes away? How many socks need to lie around to show that it is more than bricks and paint?

It’s weird but I see so many people around me just waiting to, in rather colloquial terms, get the hell out of their homes. It just makes me wonder, do people seriously think that escaping to another place would make life better? True there are some perks of moving to a different place. But in all that glamour also resides raw sadness. It’s not the kind of sadness that you can cry and get over with. It just lives in you. It inhales your oxygen and exhales your carbon dioxide. It stays. You get over it but that’s not the gist of it.

You know the cliché saying, ‘home is where the heart is’? I wonder how many people leave their hearts behind in hopes of escape. Conformity is dangerous. Change is inevitable. But using change to seek happiness, that is not right. It’s kind of like giving up on something to avoid failure. Why face the darkness when another road is illuminated-be it from the light of the train bringing your doom.

Too many metaphors and not enough points.